Art Safari received over 65.000 visitors in its 9th edition, and thousands of people enjoyed international art in the heart of Bucharest at this successful festival.
The first season of 2022 meant three months of cultural tourism in the heart of the Capital. Also, it marked the launch of the concept of temporary exhibitions that involved mutual exchanges of exhibits with the Antipa Museum and the Technical Museum, highly appreciated by visitors.
The Dacia-Romania Palace, an iconic structure, hosted appproximately 800 works of art valued at over 14 million euros that were on loan from 17 institutions in Romania, Germany, Spain, and Israel, and notable private collections (the future headquarters of the Bucharest Pinacoteca).
The 6,000 square meters of the Dacia-Romania Palace saw 65,127 visitors, and Night Tours continued to be the audience’s top visitor experience during the Art Safari. In these editions, more than 4,000 guests opted for the night excursions, taking advantage of guided tours, live music, and cocktail parties.
We conclude this Art Safari in a new format of approximately two and a half months, with the gratitude that we allowed many visitors to enjoy the exhibited works. We did not manage to keep the exhibitions open, for organizational and cost reasons, for six months, as long as an important exhibition should last; however, the longer duration of our exhibition editions seems to us to be a step forward. We offered an artistic city break in Bucharest not only to visitors who came specifically to rediscover Theodor Aman from Iaşi, Timisoara, Cluj or Constanta, but also to collectors who came especially from Israel for the Marcel Iancu exhibition. Irina Dragomir’s works received words of praise in Danish, English, French, German or Dutch because there were also foreign art lovers. Art Safari puts Bucharest on the map of European cultural capitals.
Ioana Ciocan, general director of Art Safari
Art Safari is preparing for its 10th edition, which will debut on September 23 this year. Until December 11, the Dacia-Romania Palace will host the exhibition „Seeking Truth – The Art of John Constable”, by curators: Dr. Emily Knight, and Katharine Martin, which includes works by John Constable, but also by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Claude Lorrain, William Turner, Thomas Gainsborough, Jacob van Ruisdael and others. The extremely valuable works, estimated at 100 million euros, are brought to Art Safari by the famous Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Art Safari takes place under the patronage of the Bucharest City Hall and UNESCO Romania and is made in partnership with the Bucharest City Museum, the Romanian Cultural Institute and the National Art Museum of Romania. In the 9 editions so far, it has registered almost 300,000 visitors.
